Prosecutors reviewe case of teen shot by adoptive dad

Published 7:19 pm, Saturday, September 28, 2013

Tyler Guliano as he appeared in the 2012 New Fairfield High School yearbook.

Tyler Guliano as he appeared in the 2012 New Fairfield High School yearbook.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Prosecutors reviewe case of teen shot by adoptive dad

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

The case of a 15-year-old New Farfield boy shot to death by his adoptive father, who reportedly mistook the teen for a burglar during a September night last year, remains in the hands of the State's Attorney's Office.

State Police initiated an investigation into the death of Tyler Giuliano the night his adoptive father, Jeffrey Giuliano, responded to his sister's call from her home next door and shot at a figure clad in dark clothes and a ski mask. However, the case was put on hold after the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown about three months later.

"That was one of the investigations that was affected," Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky III said Friday.

But state police have submitted their results of their investigation to Sedensky's office, which is reviewing it to determine two things: "one, to see if any more work needs to be done on it, and two, if not, is there a criminal component to the incident?" he said.

"It is actively being reviewed by my office," he said.

Sedensky did not offer additional details of the Sept. 27, 2012, incident in a quiet neighborhood unnerved by a recent home invasion that ended with one of its residents, a popular schoolteacher, shooting his adopted son.

Not long before Jeffrey Giuliano received a phone call from his sister, who lived next door to him on Meetinghouse Hill Road, word had spread through the neighborhood of a reported home invasion that involved a sexual assault.

When Giuliano heard his sister tell him at about 1 a.m. that someone was trying to get into her house, Giuliano grabbed his handgun and ran outside. As his attorney has described the incident, he warned a black-clad figure before firing several times, thinking the suspected burglar had a gun of his own.

Police officers found the victim dead at the scene. When they took the mask off his face they found the "burglar" was Tyler Giuliano.

Giuliano later turned his gun over to police, along with his son's cellphone and iPod and the family's computer, to aid the investigation.

The gun has since been returned, Giuliano's attorney, Eugene Zingaro, has said. Efforts to reach Zingaro on Friday were not successful.

After a period of paid leave, Giuliano returned to his position at Meeting House Hill School and continues to teach fifth grade there.

Lori DePalma, a Florida resident who formerly lived in New Fairfield and took care of Tyler when he was a young boy living with biological relatives, feels his case has been "put under the carpet" and is anxious for closure.

"I understand Newtown ... that was a tragedy," she said. "I would never take anything away from that. But all of a sudden the investigation on Tyler was put on hold for a few months and now a year today that Tyler's gone, and nothing."

On Friday, Sedensky, the state's attorney, classified the Giuliano case as an "open investigation" and said he could not provide an estimate of when it might be completed.